Fighting for the rights of people with disabilities, particpants came to today's festival in San José in fun and funky clothes--purple pride t-shirts and fantasy costumes. The mission of Disability Pride Day is to change the way people think about and define “disability”. Disability activists want to break down and end the internalized shame among people with disabilities and to promote the belief in society that disability is a natural and beautiful part of human diversity in which people living with disabilities can take pride.

The Silicon Valley Independent Living Center drew people from up and down the West Coast today to its second annual Disability Festival in San Josétoday.

SVILC holds the following to be true. Disability Pride is an integral part of movement building, and a direct challenge to systemic ableism and stigmatizing definitions of disability. It is a militant act of self-definition, a purposive valuing of that which is socially devalued, and an attempt to untangle ourselves from the complex matrix of negative beliefs, attitudes, and feelings that grow from the dominant group's assumption that there is something inherently wrong with our disabilities and identity.

One of SVILC’s core values is Equality and Social Justice. Their statement: “We support the equality of all people. We are committed to disability justice and to larger social justice…We value the equality of people with different types of disabilities. Recognizing that we cannot address all of society’s problems on our own, we partner with other social justice organizations… and work together towards justice and equality.”